Mobile phone landscape: India H1 2014

"A bird's eye view of the state of the fast-growing mobile industry in India in H1 2014"

Did you know that there are 83 different mobile phone brands present in India? Surprisingly, a lion's share is constituted by Indian brands, with just 27 international ones present. Indian brands also proved their mettle by contributing to more than 80 percent of phone launches in the first half of the year. In total, the first half of the year witnessed double the growth in terms of phone launches, compared to the same period last year. These are just a few of the insights we derived from our mobile phone landscape report for India in H1 2014.

Powering it is 91mobiles' extensive catalogue, which covers all the mobile phone and tablets launched in the market since 2010. The search trends have been captured from more than 100 million page views on 91mobiles in the first half of 2014.

The report covers the following:

Phone launches in H1 2014, along with comparison with H1 2013

Search trends

Trends that started this year and what we can expect from the rest of the year

You can go through the slides embedded above to find more insightful revelations about the Indian mobile phone industry. However, if you want a snapshot, then here are the key findings of the report:

The entry-level segment (below Rs 5,000) still dominates the Indian market with over 64 percent share in total smartphone launches

While Indian brands doubled their efforts in the budget segment between Rs 5,000 and 15,000, international brands have shifted their focus to the Rs 15k+ segment, which grew by almost 100 percent

The first half of 2014 also saw the debut and re-entry of many brands in the Indian market, with Motorola, Oppo, Philips and HP launching their offerings

Nokia only launched one device above Rs 15,000, while Samsung didn't launch any below it

Nokia dominated the top 10 most popular devices in H1, with four of its offerings featuring in the list, followed by Samsung (two) and Motorola (two)

While Microsoft-owned Nokia might be shelving its X range of Android-based devices, customers have appreciated the idea with both the XL and X among the most-popular smartphones

Motorola has also made a stunning comeback with its budget smartphones, with the Moto G and Moto E finding place among the most-popular smartphones

Samsung and Sony consistently feature as the most popular brands across different price segments

Value-for-money brands like Micromax and Motorola topped the charts when it came to buying intent

Partnerships to sell exclusively online were a major highlight of H1

Budget-performance phones with at least a gigabyte of RAM and dual-core processors below Rs 8,000 became a hot category in H1 2014

Indian brands like Micromax and XOLO are joining the Windows Phone brigade with their affordably-priced offerings

The going will get tougher for the incumbents with the arrival of brands like Xiaomi and ASUS

Firefox OS-based devices are lowering the barriers for owning a smartphone

The above, and lots more in our report. Do check it out in detail if you haven't already.